For years, Tamino (aka Grant Foster) has complained about the placement of the GISS model projection at the start of the ARGO-era OHC data. Well, Gavin just discovered an error in his presentation of the GISS model simulations. And he’s corrected them. Funny how, if we only looked at the ARGO era, the new GISS model-data comparisons would now resemble mine. So I acknowledged, and thanked Gavin–and then showed his graphs.

NOW Will Tamino Correct his Posts?

Tamino has complained about my model-data presentation of ARGO-era Global Ocean Heat Content in numerous posts. See here and here, and my replies here and here. My replies were also cross posted at WattsUpWithThat here and here. Tamino didn’t like the point where I showed the model projections intersecting with the Ocean Heat Content data. Refer to Figure 1.

As an aside, there are a number of comparisons floating around using only the post 2003 data to compare to the models. These are often baselined in such a way as to exaggerate the model data discrepancy (basically by picking a near-maximum and then drawing the linear trend in the models from that peak). This falls into the common trap of assuming that short term trends are predictive of long-term trends – they just aren’t (There is a nice explanation of the error here).

(That language, by the way, still exists in his updated post even though he has corrected his data.)

Gavin missed the point that I wasn’t interested in presenting long-term trends in that graph. That aside, today, Gavin Schmidt issued a correction to his presentations of Ocean Heat Content in his model-data comparisons. Gavin writes:

This is just a brief note to point out that a few graphs that I have put together showing Ocean Heat Content changes in recent decades had an incorrect scaling for the GISS model data. My error was in assuming that the model output (which were in units W yr/m2) were scaled for the ocean area only, when in fact they were scaled for the entire global surface area (see fig. 2 in Hansen et al, 2005). Therefore, in converting to units of 1022 Joules for the absolute ocean heat content change, I had used a factor of 1.1 (0.7 x 5.1 x 365 x 3600 x 24 x 10-8), instead of the correct value of 1.61 (5.1 x 365 x 3600 x 24 x 10-8). This problem came to light while we were redoing this analysis for the CMIP5 models and from conversations with dana1981 at skepticalscience.com.

So what do the new RealClimate model-data comparison graphs look like for Ocean Heat Content?

From today’s post:

From the update for 2011:

From the update for 2010:

And from the 2009 update:

If we were to look at only the data since 2004, the RealClimate graphs would look very similar to mine shown in Figure 1. In fact, I may have to shift the model projection a little to the left in my graphs.

I wonder if Tamino will continue his nonsensical claims about my ARGO-era presentations and whether he will correct the posts at his blog. If history repeats itself, Tamino won’t.

Thanks to Bill Illis for notifying me of the RealClimate corrections.

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The IPCC claims that only the rise in anthropogenic greenhouse gases can explain the warming over the past 30 years. Satellite-based sea surface temperature disagrees with the IPCC’s claims. Most, if not all, of the rise in global sea surface temperature is shown to be the result of a natural process called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. This is discussed in detail in my first book, If the IPCC was Selling Manmade Global Warming as a Product, Would the FTC Stop their deceptive Ads?, which is available in pdf and Kindle editions. An overview of my book is provided in the above-linked post. Amazon also provides a Kindle preview that runs from the introduction through a good portion of Section 2. That’s about the first 15% of the book. Refer also to the introduction, table of contents, and closing in pdf form here.

I notice that the massive spike in NODC OHC just at the onset of the Argo era (2003) is not matched by any similar spike in sea level (http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/ocean/) which we know is very heavily influenced by thermosteric contribution. To me that clearly shows that the splice to Argo era data has been manipulated in a hockeystickesque manner to enhance the OHC trend.

Given the remarkably linear seal level rise of the last hundred years I have very little faith in assertions that rate of warming of the ocean has changed significantly – except for perhaps a drop in last 5 years.

They expect us to be impressed by the way the graphs for model and measurement agree before 2000. Somehow I’m less than impressed when I see models agreeing with the data they were fitted to. It is what happens after that which is the acid test of a model.

Tamino (aka Grant Foster) has been around awhile. I was late to the broadband internet (Sept. 08) and so have spent some time looking back. Here is a link to CA (Mar 19, 2008) where Steve McIntyre’s first word in the post is – wait for it – – – ‘Tamino’.

The Levitus paper claims “One third of the observed warming occurs in the 700-2000 m layer of the ocean” yet from the year 2000 it appears nearly 100% of the warming has switched to the deep ocean. Is that physically plausible or even possible? Surely this is a red flag that there is something wrong with the analysis?

Congrats to Gavin for correcting a mistake. We do it all the time, if we can find them or they are brought to our attention. I agree with the view that before ARGO there was nothing meaningful to go on – that is why ARGO was launched, literally and figuratively. Fiddling with the initial point only works in the short term. It is the real trend that is informative, not the modelled ones.

I have asked why the bottom of the ocean is always at 4 degrees and the surface much, much warmer. I am universally told that the surface is heated by the sun and the bottom cooled by polar ice-melted water.
Now, we have been informed that melting polar ice is a consequence of atmospheric heating and that much of the ice in the North has melted, but the South less so.
We should therefore find oceanic cooling; especially in the North.
Moreover, the paelo-record of the ocean bottom should indicate that there oceans were iso-thermal when the Earth had ice-free polar caps in its past history.

Will Nitschke says: “The Levitus paper claims “One third of the observed warming occurs in the 700-2000 m layer of the ocean” yet from the year 2000 it appears nearly 100% of the warming has switched to the deep ocean. Is that physically plausible or even possible?”

Is it possible? Yup. The ocean heat content from the 0-700 meter depths has to be driven to depths greater than 700 meters at a rate that’s faster than it’s being replaced at the 0-700 meter depths.

Bob, you have a detailed knowledge of the climate models. In what heat flow is the joules of energy that is taken out the climate by photosynthesis accounted for in the models. I calculate that 1.3 X10E23 joules should be removed each year.

Something like 0.4 W/m2/yr is going into the Ocean Heat Content; maybe 0.1 W/m2/yr is going into icemelt, ground and atmosphere warming.

The estimates are that net anthro-GHGs-aerosols forcing is over 2.0 W/m2/yr right now. So, 1.0 W/m2/yr to 1.5 W/m2/yr is missing; either literally missing or it is escaping from the Earth as increased outgoing radiation.

In fact, almost half is missing (Residual) and another up to one-quarter is escaping from the Earth (Outgoing radiation).

All of the recent Ocean Heat Content accumulation estimates (and there have been a large number of different approaches taken recently) have proven that there needs to be a re-write of the theory now. It is clearly evident in the data and it cannot be ignored any longer. Even Gavin has to recognize this now after discovering this miscalculation (he WILL know what it means).

I made a quick look at the first graph (figure 1). Looks like the predictions of “Hansen et al (2005) Model Mean Trend’ were in error something on the order of 800% as compared to the observed measurements between Jan 2003 thru Dec 2011.

Seems to be a ‘little off’ you might say, and of course erred predicting greater warming.

One absolute certainty that can be observed from all graphical analysis put forth by the Believers in “the cause” is that all errors will show warming. Has there ever been an error showing cooling? Coincidence?

Is this a proxy correction with dana1981 being a proxy for Bob Tisdale?

As a team member Gavin couldn’t possibly accept criticism from a skeptic but if a true believer notes the criticism and passes it on we get:
“ … and from conversations with dana1981 at skepticalscience.com. “

My prediction is that Tamino will massage the data, continue with his dogmatic views, and encourage intolerance of those he disagrees with. Bob Tisdale’s run-ins with this artful data manipulator should also be viewed in the context of:-
1. Tamino’s review of Montford’s “Hockey Stick Illusion”. Steve McIntyre was able to refute every major point by re-posting a critique of over two years before.

2. The intolerance also extends to his language. In Tamino’s terms, most reading this blog are identified as “fake skeptics” because we don’t follow his lop-sided views on Arctic sea ice melt. When confronted or criticized, he just deletes or edits comments. Yet wild comments supporting his views are allowed.

manicbeancounter says: “An observation. Gavin Schmidt’s update has stopped the GISS-ER model simulations at about the same time that accurate data became available AND at the point where the models cease to fit the data.”

The historic/hindcast simulations for AR5 end in 2005 and Gavin does mention the AR5 models in his correction post today.

Is it possible? Yup. The ocean heat content from the 0-700 meter depths has to be driven to depths greater than 700 meters at a rate that’s faster than it’s being replaced at the 0-700 meter depths.

Is this plausible?, Nope.

The issue is, where is the energy going?

The issue is, was the energy ever there in the first place? We haven’t heard much about the Top of Atmosphere measurements lately, but last I heard, these measurements were so far from theory that either the measurements were wrong or the theory was wrong.

Tamino is a flautist who became stressed-out when he was chased by a serpent named CAGW. He was the lead character in the soap opera the Magic Flautist. He was also featured in another soap opera, Die Flatusmaus.

Will Nitschke says: “The Levitus paper claims “One third of the observed warming occurs in the 700-2000 m layer of the ocean” yet from the year 2000 it appears nearly 100% of the warming has switched to the deep ocean. Is that physically plausible or even possible?”

Is it possible? Yup. The ocean heat content from the 0-700 meter depths has to be driven to depths greater than 700 meters at a rate that’s faster than it’s being replaced at the 0-700 meter depths.
===============================================
Hmm, Bob, I think Will was looking for a more complete explanation. As was I. How does one “drive” heat downward? I mean with something other than a giant blow torch. Doesn’t the density preclude such movement? If I dive down about 1500 meters will I start getting warm?

The Argo data that indicates warming between 700 meters and 2000 meters is an artifact of the Argo floats being free floating, and that they will over time drift toward areas of ocean downwelling.and the resultant currents at depth. This introduces a warming bias to the Argo data, because these currents are the means by which heat is transported to the ocean depths.

manicbeancounter has asked what I should have asked immediately; why do the GISS-ER projections stop around 2002? I figured it was because they stopped there on the original graphs, or because I was cross-eyed, or had missed a key point.

It would be helpful if the same color was used for the same data on all graphs. But it would also be helpful if my breakfast prepared itself.

eyesonu says:
May 22, 2012 at 5:08 pm
One absolute certainty that can be observed from all graphical analysis put forth by the Believers in “the cause” is that all errors will show warming. Has there ever been an error showing cooling? Coincidence?

The person who wrote the post below does not think it is coincidence. See

omnologos says:
May 22, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Whos tamino anyway and why would anybody care about his opinion (compared, say, to Gav’s)?
=======
who is Gav anyway and why would anybody care about his opinion (compared, say, to observation’s)?

If there is a net heat gain 0-2000m over the same time period as 0-700m where it has leveled off, how can that be? How can heat be continually accumulating below 700m without it showing up in the upper 300m and SST first?

Isn’t the vast majority of heat in the upper 700m? You say it isn’t being “driven” yet that is exactly what the claim is…….heat sinking to the lower depths.

It seems to be counter intuitive, and IMO it is just another SWAG attempt to explain the “missing heat”. I’ll wager in the future it will be discovered there is a high warm bias in the ARGO system below 700m.

Also, where is the explanation for the very large adjustment that occurred last year in the 0-700 at NODC?

Anthony,
The link I referenced was Tamino slicing and dicing UAH while extolling the perfectness of RSS, then began smearing the authors of this paper http://is.gd/cbAwU8, until one of the authors (Randall) showed up and pinned Tamino’s ears back. At some point Tamino was tongue tied and forced to concede. If it was in a room you good hear a pin drop; Tamino’s groupies were somewhat dismayed……a most delightful conundrum to witness.

OK guys, this is what I find a little intriguing. The GISS ER-Model simulations are a near perfect fit to the old data set. (If one was sceptical, one would be tempted to assume that the GISS ER model was designed perhaps inadvertently, to “fit” the old data.) Now the better ARGO data comes along and there is this immediate huge divergence. So I suppose there are two explanations…

(1) Coincidentally, at the more or less exact time that the new data set got introduced, some sort of fundamental behaviour of the oceans changed.

The oceans are not driving heat downward. The oceans are circulating cold water to depth that’s just a few hundredths of a degree warmer than it used to be.
===========================================
Bob, I don’t mean to be argumentative. I’m trying to understand this …. thought.

Will Nitschke says:“The Levitus paper claims “One third of the observed warming occurs in the 700-2000 m layer of the ocean” yet from the year 2000 it appears nearly 100% of the warming has switched to the deep ocean. Is that physically plausible or even possible?”

You respond……

Is it possible? Yup. The ocean heat content from the 0-700 meter depths has to be driven to depths greater than 700 meters at a rate that’s faster than it’s being replaced at the 0-700 meter depths.

I understand the mechanism for the lower depths getting warmer. I don’t understand the lower depths getting warmer more than the higher depths. My understanding of heat transfer doesn’t allow for this.

If the air above the water is warmer, then the warmth, to a point, warms the surface and it dissipates proportionally to depth. If the air above is cooler, then the heat is moved from the ocean to the air….. so…. ???

James,
try this possible mechanism, cold artic flow increases, thus dragging slightly warmer water into the depths. As this water goes down it pushes colder water higher, which is heated by an increased air temp, result in net gain to lower depths.
Not saying I believe this to be happening but it is possible.

That one seems to have disappeared. Not even the wayback mach will find it for me.

With one hour and seven minutes between the two comments, would it be correct to suggest that Tamino lurks around WUWT, because he (Tamino) has little or no confidence in his own work? Suggestions on a postcard etc.

A warmer atmosphere does not impede heat loss. A warmer atmosphere looses heat faster than a cooler one. That is what the satellites tell us, and what thermodynamics tells us. It is the models that claim the warmer atmosphere impedes heat loss which is completely wrong

James Sexton says: “I understand the mechanism for the lower depths getting warmer. I don’t understand the lower depths getting warmer more than the higher depths. My understanding of heat transfer doesn’t allow for this.”

And DR says: “If there is a net heat gain 0-2000m over the same time period as 0-700m where it has leveled off, how can that be?”

There are two avenues through which the upper 700 meters can lose heat. One is at the surface, where it releases heat primarily through evaporation. The second is it carried to depths greater than 700 meters by ocean currents. Each ocean basin has MOC; it’s just most pronounced and studied in the North Atlantic. Let’s assume for example that there is an increase in ocean heat at the upper 700 meters due to an increase in visible sunlight or a decrease in evaporation. But at the same time that increase in heat there is matched by an increase in flow that carries that warmer-than-normal water to depths greater than 700 meters so that the OHC at the top 700 meters remains constant, but the OHC increases at depths greater than 700 meters.

Read all the Tamino & Friends smears against Spencer and Christy or anyone questioning the Immaculate Tamino’s wisdom. Witness the snarky remarks Tamino was dishing out to legitimate arguments against his “analysis”. That is how they do “science”; pile on. The usual figures (cce, DeepClimate, Hank Roberts et al), are still spreading their fertilizer around various blogs today. After all the attacks, the last update Tamino entered is:

Note: Having compared RSS and UAH to the HadAT2 data set, I find that there’s more divergence between RSS and HadAT2 at the 1992 step than between USH and HadAT2. So I withdraw my opinion that the step change represents a reason to prefer RSS over UAH.

At some point after that, I don’t recall when, Tamino deleted a whole bunch of threads. It may have been around the time someone sued a AGW loon blogger for libel, but I don’t recall the details. Some postulated Tamino went into panic mode over that and just dumped everything that put him in a bad light.

Due to lower density of warmer water the only way for the ocean can be heated is for the heat to be subducted near the poles where the surface temperature is the same or lower than the temperature of the deep ocean.

The thermosteric heating of the top 700m is said to be about 0.4mm/year. (Levitus et all 2012), but the average ocean depth is 4.3km, so if it is heating from the bottom up does that mean that overall thermosteric sea level rise is up to 6x that 0.4mm =2.4mm/year? That would be pretty close to the rate of observed sea level rise (3mm/rear give or take), and would suggest that ocean heating has been pretty constant for at least the last 100 years.

Bob Tisdale says
“There are two avenues through which the upper 700 meters can lose heat. One is at the surface, where it releases heat primarily through evaporation. The second is it carried to depths greater than 700 meters by ocean currents. ”
I believe the largest transfer of heat from the oceans to space occurs through infrared radiation from September to March reaching a max of 10 w/m2. John Kerr over at Inconveinant skeptic has an interesting arcticle about how rapidly this flux has increased over the last twenty five years due to the fact that the flux increases with the fourth power of temperature as predicted by the stefan boltzman law.The corresponing increase in forcing due to an increase in relative humidity (green house gases) can not match this thus explaining the lack in TOA radiative imbalance that we now see in the lack of shallow ocean warming.

The problem with the 0-2000m OHC data compared to the 0-700m data is that the rate of thermosteric sea level increase also declined when the 0-700 OHC curve flattened. Even though the expansion coefficient of sea water decreases with temperature, this is difficult to explain if OHC accumulation remained constant. Then there’s the problem that the plots of OHC vs thermosteric sea level for 0-700m have a massive break between 1995 and 1996. I would take the OHC data below 700m with about a ton of salt. Cazenave, et.al, 2008, for example, didn’t use it.

Bob,
The MOC cools the deep water, not warms it and it goes much deeper than 2000m. If you want to increase heat flow to the 700-2000m layer, you want a decrease in MOC causing a decrease in upwelling of cool water and a drop in the average depth of the thermocline. But a decrease in MOC is not consistent with increased loss of Arctic sea ice. Nor have I seen any publications on a drop in the thermocline depth.

DeWitt Payne, regarding MOC, refer to the following YouTube animation. Unfortunately, the anomalies are based on the averages of cross sections at only two meridians so we miss a lot. But notice the abrupt change after the 1997/98 El Nino. Hopefully, someday in the next decade or so, someone will create a 3D animation using all of the ARGO buoys that are bobbing up and down in the Pacific:

Further on the 0-700m vs 0-2000m OHC: The problem is that the plot indicates that the total rate of accumulation of energy remains constant in the 0-2000m plot after 2005. That would require about an order of magnitude increase in the rate of heat accumulation in the 700-2000m layer. If we assume that heat must pass through the 0-700m layer, that can only happen if the net rate of heat transfer from the 0-700m layer to the 700-2000m layer increases by about an order of magnitude. If we assume that there are parallel paths, then the rate of heat transfer to the top of the 0-700m layer has to decrease by about an order of magnitude and conversely for the 700-2000m layer. That pegs my BS meter.

The ratio of heat accumulation in the layers could change without changing transfer rates, but only if the total accumulation rate also changes. The ARGO data says that hasn’t happened. The ARGO 0-2000m data are clearly flawed.

I notice that the massive spike in NODC OHC just at the onset of the Argo era (2003) is not matched by any similar spike in sea level (http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/ocean/) which we know is very heavily influenced by thermosteric contribution. To me that clearly shows that the splice to Argo era data has been manipulated in a hockeystickesque manner to enhance the OHC trend.

Given the remarkably linear seal level rise of the last hundred years I have very little faith in assertions that rate of warming of the ocean has changed significantly – except for perhaps a drop in last 5 years.
——————————————————-
Bingo!! Since 2005 SL is flat; linear before that and before new ajustments. so the new heat below 700m must bypass the atmosphere, the ice, the first 700 m of ocean, and, like magic, appear in the ocean depth. I think not.

I imagine it is possible for the 700-2000 metre to warm (ever so slightly) while the 0-700 metre ocean stays relatively flat. It is just an relative energy transfer issue.

But the numbers are still far, far lower than would be required to explain an expected 2.0 W/m2/yr GHG/aerosol forcing while the numbers say 0.4 W/m2/yr is going into the Oceans and a small 0.08 W/m2/yr is accumulating in surface/atmosphere warming.

And the 2.0 W/m2/yr expected accumulation is before feedbacks which are expected to triple this number.

There is a lot of expected energy accumulation which is not happening; 0.5 versus 2.0 (plus feedbacks).

So, either the forcing numbers are wrong, the feedbacks are negative versus positive, aerosols are 2 times bigger than thought, the energy is escaping faster than expected (along the lines that the Stefan Boltzmann theory expects but is ignored in the theory), OR, the energy is still accumulating in some unknown place that does not translate into surface or deep ocean warming.

Trenberth’s “Missing Energy” paper has been restated by many to be about the missing energy that the CERES/ERBE satellites measures (0.5 W/m2/yr) but it really started out as where is our missing 1.5 W/m2/yr.

And the 2.0 W/m2/yr expected accumulation is before feedbacks which are expected to triple this number.

1. Feedbacks don’t change the forcing, they change the temperature response to the forcing.

2. The feedbacks aren’t linear with temperature or time. The initial response is determined by the transient sensitivity which isn’t affected much at all by feedbacks. There’s a post at The Blackboard that is relevant.

Tamino is a flautist who became stressed-out when he was chased by a serpent named CAGW. He was the lead character in the soap opera the Magic Flautist. He was also featured in another soap opera, Die Flatusmaus.